Measuring Regulating Ecosystem Services for the Impacts of Global Climate Change and Air Quality Service in Wageningen Case Area

Abstract

Wageningen is a city of some 38.000 people and is located in the province of Gelderland on the North bank of the Lower Rhine. In this research, Lower Rhine river and around which covers 75.16 km2within the boundaries of Wageningen city, has chosen as a research area. The aim of this research is to evaluate the contribution of the vegetation canopy formed by trees and tall shrubs to the regulating ecosystem services in terms of improving the air quality and the economic estimation of these contributions in research area. İ-tree canopy v7.1 tool was used to perform to analyse within the scope of the research. 8 land cover types and their distributions were identified in the area and a total of 3000 points were randomly assigned for each class. As a result of the research, it has been estimated that the vegetation covering 16.03 % of the research area removes a total of 103.34 tons of pollutant gas and particles from the air, the carbon amount captured by the tree canopy annually is 13.490 tons, and the total carbon stored by the tree canopy is estimated as 338.840 tons. In this context, increasing the amount and quality of open-green areas in the selected region, protecting trees and tall shrubs and increasing their diversity, ecosystem services provided from these areas will also increase and contribute to the city economy in the future.